Motherhood: The Great Surrender

Elizabeth Leon shares her journey through difficult experiences in motherhood that ultimately brought great joy and healing.

After 28 years, my motherhood is in transition. Many metaphors exist for this change. It’s not an empty nest; I am a bird launcher. I am a lighthouse instead of an anchor. A cheerleader, not a coach.

My retirement from my role as the executive officer of a large, busy family has been gradual and not always welcome. I loved being a full-time mother at home. I never considered any other vocation. I always knew my children would have my full-time attention. 

To a large extent, that conviction grew from my wounds. I was a lonely child who longed for more family connection. The isolation of my upbringing fueled a passionate desire to be there for my children. The running of their lives with structure, creativity, faith, service and love became my mission. It brought me joy. I wasn’t perfect. I failed in big and small ways. We practiced “do-overs” as I learned the importance of repair. I apologized and asked forgiveness a lot.

The Intensity of Motherhood

Motherhood stretches. Breaks. Heals. Invites. Teaches. Demands. Reveals. Pulls. Challenges. Softens. Expands. Carves. Prepares. Creates. Transforms. Fulfills. Empties. Permeates. Overflows.

I cherished the twenty-eight years I spent actively mothering, even when it crushed me. I needed to be crushed. Parts of me needed to be opened for healing. I mothered from my wounds of abandonment and unworthiness. There could be an intensity to my motherhood that felt like fear. My perfectionism and control put us all on edge. I needed my family to be good and holy and connected or else the whole thing could unravel like my family of origin.

After thirteen years of mothering, their father walked out. The safety of our nest had been breached by adultery and then divorce. Motherhood became survival. No amount of trying on my part mattered. You can’t save a marriage on your own. The dark moments of motherhood began, the ones I had done everything to prevent and had failed.

Motherhood broke me when the first custodial weekends began. For years when they left with their father, I would do everything I could not to fall apart while they packed, although I am sure my devastation filled the air. As the lock clicked on the front door and I watched them drive away, I would sink to the floor and sob. The grief overwhelmed me. This was not the motherhood I wanted, but it was the motherhood the Lord allowed. 

A Call to Radical Surrender

It was then I began my journey with surrender. Faith-filled mothers are always praying for their children, but I needed more. I needed to entrust them to the Lord. Of course, we proclaim this at their Baptism, but how many of us still have our hands on the steering wheel? Releasing my children every other weekend, Thursday nights, and three weeks in the summer to an anti-faith, anti-structure, anti-ME father took radical surrender.

I couldn’t avoid doing it, but I had to find a way to live with it.

The day we told the children that their father wanted a divorce, the kids and I had gone to Mass. I knelt in front of the emptying church, my tightly-bound emotions beginning to unravel. How could I do this? How could he have done this? Why would God allow this? The Lord is so faithful, and He gave me the grace to begin entrusting my children to Him. It was then that I finally got out of the driver’s seat of my motherhood and let Jesus take the wheel.

My motherhood learned to fight for goodness, truth, and beauty. To fight for Mass. To fight for boundaries. To fight for what was and was not appropriate. To fight for what my children needed and deserved. I wish it wasn’t a fight. I wish he had partnered with me on what was right for our children, but our perspectives were at either end of the spectrum. I chose Truth with a capital T, and he had a tattoo that read be only true to yourself. There is a vast chasm between those viewpoints and my children often floundered in those waters.

Those early empty weekends taught me that I had to learn to live periodically without the noise and demands of my children. I had to be more than just a crushed shell of a mother in their absence. In faith, I knew the Lord did not allow this cross so that I would shrivel into a bitter husk while they were gone.

Suffering and Healing

Motherhood healed. Motherhood strengthened. Motherhood softened. Motherhood learned. Motherhood yielded. Motherhood wept and forgave and showed up and raged against injustice and stayed the course.

The Lord healed me so that even though Truth never changed, the way I showed up with it did.

I learned to accept that they must each find their own way, and that suffering is always a part of the journey.

The seasons of motherhood come and go. The vocation of motherhood remains, but its requirements shift. This is a new season, the post-bird-launching one. I have already stepped into the callings that take up much of the space that motherhood claimed. I am imperfectly allowing my young adult children to lead the way with how much connection and communication they want to have. I am balancing how to still be available and learning to be okay when I can’t be.

We are finding our way, my birdies and me. I sit in honor and awe of the journey we are on together, grateful for the abundant gift of being a lighthouse, cheerleader, consultant, and witness to these five precious souls who call me Momma.

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Copyright 2026 Elizabeth Leon
Images: Canva